Use of an air brush to spray dry samples for X-ray powder diffraction

The construction and operation of a spray drier is described where the spray is produced using an air brush, essentially a miniature spray gun. The spray-dried products consist of spheres 50–60 µm in diameter and typical product recoveries are 80%, a marked improvement over simple two-nozzle systems. The spray-dried samples are easy to load into XRD powder holders and present a smooth surface and relatively constant bulk density to the X-ray beam. Problems of preferred orientation are effectively eliminated and the resulting X-ray powder patterns are completely reproducible by different operators.